Put the knife down and take a green herb, dude. (c) Ruffin Bailey 2001-2021

I've been using my DTV converter box for some time now, and I've got its pros and cons down fairly well now.

The pros are numerous. The picture, when you have a good signal, is superb (though, honestly, a perfect analog signal (have you seen one? I get Fox *very* well if I try) is just a small step down). I'm able to get three extra channels (two on educational TV and the CW network) with the multicasts, which is also nice. Finally, now that it's digital, there's really nothing much in the way of getting TVs that, say, will download an Excel file or html page related to the stats you see on a news story or something similar. AppleTV anyone?

The cons still outweigh these positives for me. The first and worst effect of DTV is the horrible "Ivory Tower" engineering it evidences. When the weather's perfect, reception isn't bad. When there's wind, my signal goes to heck every time and I end up watching analog again. From give or take 1-3pm, every day, my signal degrades enough that I start watching analog. Again, I'll mention that the way DTV sound doesn't gain static but completely cuts out instead. This is the single worst part of the DTV system; without consistent sound, a serviceable signal because useless.

Worst about DTV is the impossibility of tuning your antennae. With analog, each minuscule move of the antennae is immediately reflected on your screen, letting you easily and quickly find the best location to get a signal. With digital, you've got no idea if you're getting close or not. It's an impossible task.

Let's remember to add all the VCRs that are rendered nearly obsolete, at least in the market of recording ("time warping") shows being shown over the air. You can route your converter box's signal into channel 3 or 4 your VCR, but your VCR can't change channels. You can only do timer recordings of whatever channel happens to be coming out of the converter box by taping channel 3 or 4, and you won't be able to watch another channel while you're taping. Figuring that much out takes a tiny bit of out of the box thinking, though. Essentially, you're in the market to replace a second major piece of electronics you already own thanks to DTV.

If you've got a lab where you can control the transmitter and the receiver, you can get decent results. If you're in the "real world" trying to grab seven over-the-air channels, swapping back and forth from one to another, well, it's another story entirely. DTV, in this case, STINKS.

Who does this affect? Not those who use cable or satellites. No no, cable companies must love DTV. When you get aggravated enough, do you buy a $300 antennae for your roof or shell out $40 a month for a clear signal and extra channels? I'm betting a decent percentage choose the latter. I feel sorry for ~~older~~ folk who might have a hard time understanding how to hook up a converter box and buy a new TV instead -- much less those that shell out for a TV and can't figure out why the reception, when it's not coming in well, has gone from so danged good to absolutely unwatchable. And I feel a little anger that there will be thousands, I'll bet, of people too out of the loop or just plain too poor to keep watching TV after the switch.

Labels: DTV

My official US Government DTV $40 coupons came in the mail today, and I wasted no time getting out to grab my DTV converter box. Here are some hints for those who are also still in the age of rabbit ears.

Finding the converter boxes wasn't difficult. I first visited Circuit City, which had two Zenith DTT900 models with a price of $59.99. I had planned on using my first coupon on the first box I found to pseudo-randomly test out what John Q. Public might experience, but there was no way I was spending over $20 for a converter box.

Circuit City had an interesting 8.5x11 inch paper beside the Zenith boxes explaining how coupons worked. One particularly devious point to notice is that you can't trade a box back in once you've purchased it. For instance, there's a model being sold online for $53 that claims to have the Picture-in-Picture feature. If you used your coupon on the Zenith and later learned of the PiP model, you can't trade the Zenith back in. If you return your box, it turns out the government gets its $40 back and, in this particular case, you get your $19.99 plus tax on $59.99 back in your pocket. This is pretty clearly not a fair proposition.

Wal-Mart had about twenty to forty Magnavox TB100MW9 models for sale that I could see, priced for $49.99, underneath its flatscreen televisions with an LCD display counting down the number of days before you could no longer receive analog TV broadcasts. I tried to purchase one with the DTV coupon, but the lady in electronics had no idea what to do and shuttled me to the registers up front. A twenty-five minute wait and one "CSM" -- which means Customer Service Manager in Wal-Mart-ese -- later, we finally figured out through trial and error that the DTV coupon should be rung up as a credit card for the amount of $40. I wouldn't even present the card to the cashier if you're buying from Wal-Mart. Just let them know you're using two forms of payment, the first being a credit card - NOT a debit card - with a $40 balance.

When I got back home, it took a little thinking to figure out the best way to hook up the TB100MW9. The DTV conversion is really going to obsolete a lot more of your hardware than is immediately obvious. I assume that my all-in-one remote, for instance, knows nothing of the converter box's remote. I'll try the Magnavox TV codes at some point, though I'm worried that I'll still have to switch to my TV to change volume. Secondly, if you have a VCR, you're not going to be able to record DTV broadcasts using the automatic timer. If you're grabbing shows every weekday and/or weekend, you're toast unless you buy a VCR with a DTV tuner, and in that case you'd no longer have nearly as pressing a need for your conversion box. It'd still be nice to have the converter, as you could watch a DTV broadcast as you taped another, much as your VCR's analog tuner works with your analog TV's. But enough of fringe combinations... remember that your current VCR's timer is toast come February of 2009, and it won't be timer recording DTV by channel, ever.

This Magnavox converter also has the annoying problem of not letting the antennae's signal pass-through. That is, after I plug my rabbit ears into the TB100MW9, I can no longer receive an analog signal with my television on the other end. The converter stops the antennae's signal whether the converter is in use or not, meaning all my television's built-in tuner will get is snow if the converter is installed in-line, which is the method suggested by the instructions.

For the next year, at least, I believe a much smarter setup is to keep the rabbit ears attached to my VCR, routing my VCR into my TV's "video in" ports, and then have my VCR's antennae out coaxial cable route to the converter box. My VCR doesn't "eat" the antennae's signal the way the TB100MW9 does, so the rabbit ears can still do double duty, providing the analog signal to my VCR and the digital signal to the converter, this way. I can tape an analog broadcast on my VCR using the automatic timer and watch DTV at the same time, if need be, at least for the next year minus some change. The only drawback is that the VCR can't, without some more wiring, tape the crystal-clear DTV reception I'm getting, nor the bonus channels I get from our educational/public TV channel and the bonus CW network channel NBC is running. Obviously after the DTV switch, you'll be able to route your converter box through your VCR and time when you tape on channel 3 or 4 - your converter box will be outputting to one or the other according to your choice, so your VCR will "see" whatever DTV channel you're watching on analog 3 or 4 - but not select which channel you tape. To make matters worse, the TB100MW9 is set up by default to turn itself off after 4 hours of no use. This saves energy, but makes it difficult to tape The News Hour every evening while you're away.

So I'm in the market for a remote and will soon be in the market for a new recording device with an automatic timer. I'm also waiting about a half-second when I flip for the new signal to be read before a picture hits the screen instead of benefiting from analog's instant feedback, killing the notorious channel surfing efficiency of guys like me by about 15%. I'm trading that for a much clearer picture (this new clarity really can't be overstated), three additional channels, and the ability to, at least for me, watch every channel I'd watched before without moving the rabbit ears at all. I'm also out about $13 after tax. That's non-trivial, I think. I'm not exactly destitute, but even I balked at laying down $24 for the privilege of watching DTV. Honestly, I bet it costs less than $24 to make one of these things, but that's just a hunch. Let's see what happens once the coupon program's over. And even at $13, I can't imagine what I'd be thinking if I was impoverished. Buying a new VCR, much less something like TiVo with what I believe is a monthly charge, is a hefty charge that doesn't exactly float my boat either. I also noticed a number of VCR/DVD combos that didn't tape, not even VHS, at the Wal-Mart, which struck me as particularly strange.

The TB100MW9 can do letterbox, zoom, or squeeze translations of the new DTV aspect ratio. That's a nice feature to have. Yet HD broadcasts are slightly cut off on the edges on my Zenith set. I think I also noticed some text blurring when it was down-sampled to 480i. The overall great picture isn't without its shortcomings.

I think that's about all I've got. Use your coupon as a credit card if you're at Wal-Mart, get ready to add yet another remote to your collection (the TB100MW9's buttons are incredibly small and elderly unfriendly to boot), prepare to long for the days when your VCR still worked as it was intended, and enjoy the picture and new channels. I'll rant about how this coupon program turns out to be something of a subsidy and free advertisement for Wal-Mart, Circuit City, Best Buy, and Radio Shack later.

Labels: DTV

title: Put the knife down and take a green herb, dude.	descrip: One feller's views on the state of everyday computer science & its application (and now, OTHER STUFF) who isn't rich enough to shell out for www.myfreakinfirst-andlast-name.com Using 89% of the same design the blog had in 2001.
FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY!!! Back-up your data and, when you bike, always wear white. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Affiliate links in green.
x MarkUpDown is the best Markdown editor for professionals on Windows 10. It includes two-pane live preview, in-app uploads to imgur for image hosting, and MultiMarkdown table support. Features you won't find anywhere else include... MarkUpDown Multiline Table & Bootstrap Grid support. Beautiful Easy Actions that keep the Markdown flowing. HTML paste to paste HTML source into your documents. You've wasted more than $15 of your time looking for a great Markdown editor. Stop looking. MarkUpDown is the app you're looking for. Learn more or head over to the 'Store now!

Monday, January 05, 2015
OTT and OTA == Decent TV Options As a recently relapsed cord-cutter (as in, I'm subscription free again), today's CET announcement by Dish about Sling TV (ESPN, Disney, TNT, TBS, et al for $20 a month) will probably suck me back in to spending some "cable" cash, at least during the NBA playoffs and the NFL season. I bagged a ChannelMaster DVR+ as part of my cutting, and though it's a little steep ($175 even on deep Black Friday discount), it's wonderful. I don't have the WiFi module, so no streaming services or "extended scheduling", yet just the stock DTV OTA schedule metadata is enough for it to feel like I'm back in subscription-supported DVR land. (And, admittedly, I enjoy almost everything MeTV is playing -- most everything but MASH and a few others.) There's absolutely no reason to shell out for TiVo if you're OTA. So it's humorous to see the boilerplate Sling TV announcement include... Also missing are broadcast networks ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox. According to Sling TV CEO Roger Lynch, that’s because most consumers are able to find programming from those networks elsewhere — like on Hulu, for instance. When did Hulu become the go-to source for network TV? Do these folks even use a TV set? I can understand if you're on your laptop/mobile device all the time -- as many college students seem to be -- but once you're employed, I've got to think most shell out for a real tube. Sometimes I think my 32"er puts me in the television hardware poorhouse. And doesn't Hulu have nearly unskippable commercials? Seems it'd be worse than a good DVR and [great] OTA antenna. In any event, now that we're getting real "Over The Top" options for internet TV that don't include the big four, I'm hoping this means those major networks keep investing in OTA infrastructure. They've benefitted enough from the "must carry" laws, and are have probably been running a bit of a deficit in the "public service" category for a while now. Labels: business, DTV posted by ruffin at 1/05/2015 07:50:00 PM

Wednesday, September 19, 2012
AppleCable: It's about the cloud, ain't it? Time Warner would give up user interface control to an Apple cable box: An executive with Time Warner has indicated that his company would give up control of the user interface of its services to Apple in order to broker a deal. Well, duh. Who wouldn't want to cede the design headache for a cable box OS to someone else? And let's not pretend anyone's doing a bang up job right now. Have those interfaces changed much since the 1980s? Well, yes, but that's mostly to support DVRs. Often, it's still just an accordion of shows by channel. What surprises me is that DirecTV or Dish isn't all over this for some sort of exclusive. Want to outfox cable? Have a better interface. And since many more folks could theoretically all have DirecTV or Dish than any one cable service, it's a no-growth barred proposition for Apple too. So why isn't Apple pushing for DirecTV as a partner for Apple TV? One word: Cloud. AppleInsider's post doesn't quite put one and one together, but they're getting there here: Apple is said to have had discussions with major cable operators to let consumers use a branded set-top box to view both live television and Internet-based content. Apple is rumroed to have proposed an advanced cloud-based video recording service that some said would blur the line between live and on-demand content. Apple was said to have been particularly interested in storing recorded content in the cloud, which would allow users to start any show at any time from a number of devices beyond their living room television set. (pretty bad when the rumor site can't spell "rumored") So the deal isn't just TV (duh). It's about zeroes and ones. Satellite providers don't have an interactive pipe into folks' homes. Cable companies do. Apple knows that interactive pipes are what drive computerized hardware sales. Satellite can essentially only drive conventional TV. Apple's after much more than your television. They want your movies (commercial and personal), your refrigerator, your toaster, your car when it's parked outside -- they want your centralized, almost always on "entertainment" center and a front-row seat not just providing content, but providing access to all content. Make sense? It's not about the TV. It's about the literal cable. Labels: apple, digitization, DTV, TV posted by ruffin at 9/19/2012 03:00:00 PM

Saturday, February 07, 2009
Got your DTV converter box? Here's step 2. This blog entry, titled "How to build a HDTV Antenna....CHEAP!" -- if it isn't a hoax -- may be the most important URL on the net for US residents making the switch from OTA analog to digital. I've complained a bit about how bad DTV was with my old rabbit ears that did just fine with analog, and how buying a $40 antenna make me stop complaining (well, largely stop complaining). Let's just say that this... ... looks a lot like this (which is my antenna with twice the receivers)... ... but it's a lot cheaper. Don't get me wrong. I'm still annoyed at how the move to DTV obsoletes so much hardware -- your remote (can't change the converter box's channels), your VCR (have to watch what you're taping, and can no longer preset timed recordings), your portable televisions (hard to add a converter box to your hand-held TV), rabbit ears (discussed already), even to some degree your television (whose tuner is worthless and whose aspect ratio is largely antiquated). Still, if this blog's antenna works, that's a big bonus for those who'd rather than waste $40 on an antenna. Labels: DTV posted by ruffin at 2/07/2009 08:19:00 PM

Thursday, January 22, 2009
TiVo sells what you're watching, and your cut is? Yep, nada. It's two years-old now, and I'm going to beg forgiveness on the grounds that I still use a VCR (yes, a VCR) to "time warp" shows, but it's worth pointing out that TiVO and DVR users seem to be giving away their watching habits -- with "second-by-second" precision -- for nothing. You're paying for companies to sell your personal data. Smooth. That's Web 2.0, folks. CBS Signs On to TiVo's DVR Ratings - 2008-01-31 07:14:00 - Multichannel News: CBS will subscribe to the TiVo StopWatch service, which provides a "second-by-second measurement" of how DVR owners watch live and recorded programs and commercials. The DVR maker inked a similar pact with NBC Universal in November, although in addition to the research NBCU also has the option to sell interactive TV ads on TiVos. And, it appears, TiVo's using Linux in the box that allows you to pay them to sell your personal data: In 2006, Free Software Foundation (FSF) decided to combat TiVo's technical system of blocking users from running modified software. This behavior, which FSF dubs 'tivoization', was tackled by creating a new version of the GNU General Public License (GPL v3) prohibiting this activity.[25] The operating system kernel included in the TiVo is distributed under the terms of the GPL.... This new license provision was acknowledged by TiVo in its April 2007 SEC filing: 'we may be unable to incorporate future enhancements to the GNU/Linux operating system into our software, which could adversely affect our business'.[26] Regardless, the Linux kernel has not been changed to use GPL v3. I was generally opposed to v3, but this could help crack me. (no pun intended) Linus, as usual, would rather play than worry about pay (not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that, though I tend to believe it should be covered under the good Samaritan law ;^D): The kernel license covers the kernel. It does not cover boot loaders and hardware, and as far as I'm concerned, people who make their own hardware can design them any which way they want. Whether that means "booting only a specific kernel" or "sharks with lasers", I don't care. So there are two major groups of folks that are giving out free labor for TiVo, Linux hackers and television watchers. Man, I love me some DTV. Labels: DRM, DTV posted by ruffin at 1/22/2009 10:04:00 AM

Friday, September 05, 2008
What the DTV converter voucher program missed -- subsidizing antennas Well, I've whined about DTV a bit here, particularly reception, and I finally figured out the program. The government needed to not only subsidize the converter boxes (the selection for which is still abysmal) but also better antennas. I finally gave in, after going through a couple of sets of rabbit ears, and shelled out for an UHF antenna that got awfully good recommendations online. Right now, it's inside the house, on a table next to the TV, and it's already heads and shoulders above the reception we had before. For under $40 shipped, I got the Antennas Direct DB2 Multi Directional HDTV Antenna. Before, I used to have to move the antenna to get different stations. Now, without even aiming the antenna, just plopping it where it fit easily, we can even watch the station that'd stopped coming in fairly well. Let's assume this antenna makes DTV a viable choice for getting OTA broadcasts. There are about a billion ways to critique that the gov't left getting a good antenna out of their literature and pork payments to Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Circuit City. It's obvious to me now that DTV is more difficult to receive over the air because of its very low fault tolerance. There's no white noise in the picture anymore. Instead, we get drops (pixelated pictures and no sound) so bad that the TV is unwatchable. How do folks that don't have Internet access supposed to find out what's a decent antenna? How can we assume they have $40 to shell out for a better antenna? (And, one thing I'm ignoring for now, what if their local stations broadcast in VHF, which this antenna doesn't handle? The VHF antennas with similarly good reviews are even more expensive.) Again, the converter box voucher program only went half-way. Getting DTV takes more than your standard rabbit ears in my limited experience, supported by my understanding of how it works (again, the low fault tolerance), and the government (that is us, the people who it represents) should feel some responsibility to ensure that people without the knowledge (if only because of a lack of Internet access) or resources to buy what they need get it and continue receiving the (albeit rare) crucial information about their communities the television provides. Seriously, our household nearly went the basic cable route thanks to the bad rabbit ear experience. Glad I held out, but I'm sure a significant number aren't. Labels: DTV posted by ruffin at 9/05/2008 08:41:00 PM

Monday, June 30, 2008
HD FM Radio and iTunes Tagging - Public Airwaves, Private Mules 340 HD-Radio Stations Launch iTunes Tagging - 4/7/2008 7:31:00 AM - TWICE: iTunes Tagging lets consumers “tag” songs broadcast by a digital FM station by pressing a button on a radio. The HD Radio stores song metadata that transfers automatically to an iPod when it docks to the radio. Later, when the iPod is synced with a PC, all the user’s tagged songs will appear in a playlist for previewing and buying. Let's not play dumb. Like Firefox and Google, Clear Channel is doing this because they'll get a kickback for each track sold this way, or they're at least paying Apple up front to play, right? If Apple's paying them, I've misjudged Apple's clout, though it's still a win for the Jobsaphiles. But this brings me to my second concern, the digitization of the public airwaves. I know analog radio's full of adverts already, but there's something extra creepy about the content carrying commercial metadata like digital mules. It seems like the public benefit, the content the advertisements are supposed to support, from broadcasts are getting harder to find. And that's the point of digital, right? If nothing else, we can package any sort of non-physical content with digital without having to redesign the method of delivery. iTunes tagging is one way commercial interests can shove their way into what used to be independent content. HD radio is another -- how long before we have HD 2.0? 3.0? etc? I was recently looking at the Honda Nighthawk, and the motorcycle's been pretty much the same for twenty years. Up until Feb of next year, we could use most any TV made in the last half-century to get our CSI or American Idol fix. How long before TVs are "upgraded" as quickly as video game consoles and our VHS, ur DVD, um... Blu-Ray players? Poorly written blog, I know, but this iTunes tagging is representative of the future in a way I don't quite yet fully comprehend, but it's setting off the proverbial warning bells. Labels: apple, digitization, DTV, Google, iTunes, online distribution, radio posted by ruffin at 6/30/2008 12:23:00 PM

Thursday, June 19, 2008
techspot: FCC extends analog TV deadline to 2012 FCC extends analog TV deadline to 2012 - TechSpot News (this is not news, btw. Apparently from Sept 12th of 2007): The FCC voted unanimously that cable companies will be required to continue to offer local channels in analog until at least 2012, 3 years longer than originally planned. The FCC's justification for this is that a large amount of homes (40 million or more) still have only analog TV sets. While many of those could have some form of DAC (like a cable box) inside, there are still many who may be relying solely on analog signals. You've got to be kidding me. I'll bet a dollar that the poorest folk with TVs don't get cable and use over the air reception. They'll have to have digital broadcast ready equipment in Feb of next year. Now those with cable get until 2012 because "a large amount of homes (40 million or more) still have only analog TV sets". This is absolute baloney. Cable companies often require people with less than basic to carry some sort of converter box (the cable box) already, and rather than have cable companies subsidize their own customers, we give them a break and make the poorest of the poor shell out for new equipment. Brilliant. This is the biggest scam I've seen from the gov't that I can remember. Why there's no outrage over it -- other than nobody's yet affected and most everyone wanted an excuse to buy a new TV -- I don't understand. Labels: DTV posted by ruffin at 6/19/2008 04:06:00 PM

Saturday, April 12, 2008
DTV letdowns I've been using my DTV converter box for some time now, and I've got its pros and cons down fairly well now. The pros are numerous. The picture, when you have a good signal, is superb (though, honestly, a perfect analog signal (have you seen one? I get Fox very well if I try) is just a small step down). I'm able to get three extra channels (two on educational TV and the CW network) with the multicasts, which is also nice. Finally, now that it's digital, there's really nothing much in the way of getting TVs that, say, will download an Excel file or html page related to the stats you see on a news story or something similar. AppleTV anyone? The cons still outweigh these positives for me. The first and worst effect of DTV is the horrible "Ivory Tower" engineering it evidences. When the weather's perfect, reception isn't bad. When there's wind, my signal goes to heck every time and I end up watching analog again. From give or take 1-3pm, every day, my signal degrades enough that I start watching analog. Again, I'll mention that the way DTV sound doesn't gain static but completely cuts out instead. This is the single worst part of the DTV system; without consistent sound, a serviceable signal because useless. Worst about DTV is the impossibility of tuning your antennae. With analog, each minuscule move of the antennae is immediately reflected on your screen, letting you easily and quickly find the best location to get a signal. With digital, you've got no idea if you're getting close or not. It's an impossible task. Let's remember to add all the VCRs that are rendered nearly obsolete, at least in the market of recording ("time warping") shows being shown over the air. You can route your converter box's signal into channel 3 or 4 your VCR, but your VCR can't change channels. You can only do timer recordings of whatever channel happens to be coming out of the converter box by taping channel 3 or 4, and you won't be able to watch another channel while you're taping. Figuring that much out takes a tiny bit of out of the box thinking, though. Essentially, you're in the market to replace a second major piece of electronics you already own thanks to DTV. If you've got a lab where you can control the transmitter and the receiver, you can get decent results. If you're in the "real world" trying to grab seven over-the-air channels, swapping back and forth from one to another, well, it's another story entirely. DTV, in this case, STINKS. Who does this affect? Not those who use cable or satellites. No no, cable companies must love DTV. When you get aggravated enough, do you buy a $300 antennae for your roof or shell out $40 a month for a clear signal and extra channels? I'm betting a decent percentage choose the latter. I feel sorry for ~~older~~ folk who might have a hard time understanding how to hook up a converter box and buy a new TV instead -- much less those that shell out for a TV and can't figure out why the reception, when it's not coming in well, has gone from so danged good to absolutely unwatchable. And I feel a little anger that there will be thousands, I'll bet, of people too out of the loop or just plain too poor to keep watching TV after the switch. Labels: DTV posted by ruffin at 4/12/2008 09:48:00 PM

Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Day one with DTV: Noticeable drawbacks Let me blog quickly to say I'm not impressed with much of DTV. Whoever designed this obviously did not test the technology using rabbit ears in the field. Several big issues with reception. * When DTV reception isn't good, you get complete breaks in the picture and sound. With good reception, DTV is super crisp. With troubled reception, like today for me with a particularly windy day, it's nearly impossible to watch because instead of being fuzzy, it skips. * The sound skips as well with bad reception. There are serious breaks in sound. Never did I realize how important dialogue is to plot until I couldn't hear it. Even with horrendously bad pictures, analog transmissions tend to keep a steady sound track. NOTE: This isn't an inherent limitation of digital TV. They could, for example, put out the sound track three or four times, perhaps ahead of the picture, and have the receiver put together a full track in time for the picture. This is a limitation inherent with the implementation that, again, wasn't well field tested. I'm in an urban area, nearly spitting distance from an interstate and a large mall. I shouldn't have trouble with my signal so bad that I'm back to watching analog on every channel when it's windy. * It's nearly impossible to tune your antennae. With analog signals, you get instant feedback regarding the strength of your signal as you move your antennae around, add foil, whatever. Here, you have to pause with every move to let the receiver catch up and decode the signal, which takes about a half-second, before you can tell if you've improved your reception. Meanwhile, the transmission is unwatchable -- not merely fuzzy, but unwatchable. Getting sound straight, like I suggest above with redundant sound broadcast, would help a ton with the unwatchable part, but you still can't tune the antennae quickly. The "signal strength" number reading I get from my receivers setup display isn't much better, as the box still has to decode the signal in the new position before it can get me a reading. Also note that moving the antennae at all invariably cuts out the picture and sound for a second. Not cool. Also note that this Magnavox TB100MW9 (as well as every other Set Top Box (STB) I've seen) doesn't have any controls on the box. Lose the remote, and you're toast. In sum, DTV is a better system if it's used in a controlled system. In practice, in the "real" field, it's, so far, grossly inferior to analog broadcasts. I realize I'm used to the fuzzy picture the same way I can listen to talk on AM through static and whines that drive others crazy. Yet even when I factor in that realization, today's bad weather tells me DTV wasn't as well engineered as it should have been. So now what? Labels: DTV posted by ruffin at 3/04/2008 05:30:00 PM

Monday, March 03, 2008
DTV Converter Box Coupons Arrive: Observations and Tips My official US Government DTV $40 coupons came in the mail today, and I wasted no time getting out to grab my DTV converter box. Here are some hints for those who are also still in the age of rabbit ears. Finding the converter boxes wasn't difficult. I first visited Circuit City, which had two Zenith DTT900 models with a price of $59.99. I had planned on using my first coupon on the first box I found to pseudo-randomly test out what John Q. Public might experience, but there was no way I was spending over $20 for a converter box. Circuit City had an interesting 8.5x11 inch paper beside the Zenith boxes explaining how coupons worked. One particularly devious point to notice is that you can't trade a box back in once you've purchased it. For instance, there's a model being sold online for $53 that claims to have the Picture-in-Picture feature. If you used your coupon on the Zenith and later learned of the PiP model, you can't trade the Zenith back in. If you return your box, it turns out the government gets its $40 back and, in this particular case, you get your $19.99 plus tax on $59.99 back in your pocket. This is pretty clearly not a fair proposition. Wal-Mart had about twenty to forty Magnavox TB100MW9 models for sale that I could see, priced for $49.99, underneath its flatscreen televisions with an LCD display counting down the number of days before you could no longer receive analog TV broadcasts. I tried to purchase one with the DTV coupon, but the lady in electronics had no idea what to do and shuttled me to the registers up front. A twenty-five minute wait and one "CSM" -- which means Customer Service Manager in Wal-Mart-ese -- later, we finally figured out through trial and error that the DTV coupon should be rung up as a credit card for the amount of $40. I wouldn't even present the card to the cashier if you're buying from Wal-Mart. Just let them know you're using two forms of payment, the first being a credit card - NOT a debit card - with a $40 balance. When I got back home, it took a little thinking to figure out the best way to hook up the TB100MW9. The DTV conversion is really going to obsolete a lot more of your hardware than is immediately obvious. I assume that my all-in-one remote, for instance, knows nothing of the converter box's remote. I'll try the Magnavox TV codes at some point, though I'm worried that I'll still have to switch to my TV to change volume. Secondly, if you have a VCR, you're not going to be able to record DTV broadcasts using the automatic timer. If you're grabbing shows every weekday and/or weekend, you're toast unless you buy a VCR with a DTV tuner, and in that case you'd no longer have nearly as pressing a need for your conversion box. It'd still be nice to have the converter, as you could watch a DTV broadcast as you taped another, much as your VCR's analog tuner works with your analog TV's. But enough of fringe combinations... remember that your current VCR's timer is toast come February of 2009, and it won't be timer recording DTV by channel, ever. This Magnavox converter also has the annoying problem of not letting the antennae's signal pass-through. That is, after I plug my rabbit ears into the TB100MW9, I can no longer receive an analog signal with my television on the other end. The converter stops the antennae's signal whether the converter is in use or not, meaning all my television's built-in tuner will get is snow if the converter is installed in-line, which is the method suggested by the instructions. For the next year, at least, I believe a much smarter setup is to keep the rabbit ears attached to my VCR, routing my VCR into my TV's "video in" ports, and then have my VCR's antennae out coaxial cable route to the converter box. My VCR doesn't "eat" the antennae's signal the way the TB100MW9 does, so the rabbit ears can still do double duty, providing the analog signal to my VCR and the digital signal to the converter, this way. I can tape an analog broadcast on my VCR using the automatic timer and watch DTV at the same time, if need be, at least for the next year minus some change. The only drawback is that the VCR can't, without some more wiring, tape the crystal-clear DTV reception I'm getting, nor the bonus channels I get from our educational/public TV channel and the bonus CW network channel NBC is running. Obviously after the DTV switch, you'll be able to route your converter box through your VCR and time when you tape on channel 3 or 4 - your converter box will be outputting to one or the other according to your choice, so your VCR will "see" whatever DTV channel you're watching on analog 3 or 4 - but not select which channel you tape. To make matters worse, the TB100MW9 is set up by default to turn itself off after 4 hours of no use. This saves energy, but makes it difficult to tape The News Hour every evening while you're away. So I'm in the market for a remote and will soon be in the market for a new recording device with an automatic timer. I'm also waiting about a half-second when I flip for the new signal to be read before a picture hits the screen instead of benefiting from analog's instant feedback, killing the notorious channel surfing efficiency of guys like me by about 15%. I'm trading that for a much clearer picture (this new clarity really can't be overstated), three additional channels, and the ability to, at least for me, watch every channel I'd watched before without moving the rabbit ears at all. I'm also out about $13 after tax. That's non-trivial, I think. I'm not exactly destitute, but even I balked at laying down $24 for the privilege of watching DTV. Honestly, I bet it costs less than $24 to make one of these things, but that's just a hunch. Let's see what happens once the coupon program's over. And even at $13, I can't imagine what I'd be thinking if I was impoverished. Buying a new VCR, much less something like TiVo with what I believe is a monthly charge, is a hefty charge that doesn't exactly float my boat either. I also noticed a number of VCR/DVD combos that didn't tape, not even VHS, at the Wal-Mart, which struck me as particularly strange. The TB100MW9 can do letterbox, zoom, or squeeze translations of the new DTV aspect ratio. That's a nice feature to have. Yet HD broadcasts are slightly cut off on the edges on my Zenith set. I think I also noticed some text blurring when it was down-sampled to 480i. The overall great picture isn't without its shortcomings. I think that's about all I've got. Use your coupon as a credit card if you're at Wal-Mart, get ready to add yet another remote to your collection (the TB100MW9's buttons are incredibly small and elderly unfriendly to boot), prepare to long for the days when your VCR still worked as it was intended, and enjoy the picture and new channels. I'll rant about how this coupon program turns out to be something of a subsidy and free advertisement for Wal-Mart, Circuit City, Best Buy, and Radio Shack later. Labels: DTV posted by ruffin at 3/03/2008 09:54:00 PM

Saturday, February 16, 2008
It's a DTV Saturday! Finally, DTV is getting the coverage it deserves, and it's, ironically, the coupons that are driving the coverage. Follow the money, dummy. Wired News - AP News: Aitken calls using HDTV broadcasts the 'low-hanging fruit' for TV stations to take advantage of. He points to another big possibility: sending live TV broadcasts to portable devices like cell phones. Adapting the handsets would be simple technically; the far bigger issue is getting broadcasters, programmers, mobile device makers to agree on a standard. Well, I think we've already got a standard to a certain degree -- it's called the DTV broadcast. The wonder of digital is the ease with which it can be translated onto multiple platforms. DTV signals are just another one-way stream for digital platforms that include a high-res screen to consume, and hopefully we will see inexpensive versions of DTV on our Game Boys sooner than later. Labels: DTV posted by ruffin at 2/16/2008 06:53:00 PM

Stealing Our Air From The House Committee on Energy and Commerce's front page: On that day, analog televisions not connected to a converter box, cable, or satellite will stop working because they will be unable to receive digital signals. Again I'll state that the move from analog to digital over-the-air broadcasts unfairly impacts the have-nots of US society. If you're rich enough to be shelling out for cable or dish TV, you won't feel the change. If you're rich enough to have purchased a new TV in the last few years, you're likely already enjoying extra over-the-air channels thanks to DTV. If you're dirt poor, you won't have an inexpensive used TV to buy; you'll have to shell out $20 you could've spent on bread for a converter box, and that's with the government's coupon; once February 2009 rolls around, you'd better be ready to start enjoying radio. And let me critique the government's DTV converter box program again. The poor and elderly... 1.) Don't know the coupons exist. Fox News reports that, NTIA spokesman Todd Sedmak said Tuesday about 2.5 million consumers have ordered more 4.8 million coupons so far since Jan. 1 when the program came online. To think that I was worried 33.5 million coupons wouldn't be enough! Run through a neighborhood with an average income of $24,000 or less and see how many know about the program before you tell me these numbers mean my concern's moot. 2.) Still have to pay $20, based on the prices I've seen online, to get a converter box for their old TV. 3.) Won't necessarily be able to handle the extra barrier to entry between themselves and the TV. What about TVs with those dual screws on the back? Ones without inputs whatsoever? 4.) Will still, no matter what, be forced to pump money into converter boxes or TV manufacturers pockets... or they won't get to watch TV. Ludicrous. Labels: DTV posted by ruffin at 2/16/2008 03:34:00 PM

Saturday, January 05, 2008
Get the kids to go digital!! Caught some major network (ABC?) Saturday morning cartoons today. The network ran a self-promo full of cartoonish animal-like things. It asked the kids watching to tell their cable company (via their parents, I think) to carry that network's digital signal. I've given some thought to the advantage cable companies have, being able to continue sending analog signals to customers after the digital drop-dead date, but hadn't thought about why the over-the-air networks might be upset that the cable advantage would cost them resources. Thanks, Saturday morning cartoons, for clearing that up for me. Wear white, buy used books, and don't forget to get your $40 pork-producing DTV tuner coupons quickly!. Labels: DTV posted by ruffin at 1/05/2008 09:36:00 AM

<< Older \| Newer >>